The present invention relates to a scooter body consisting of a hollow construction made of fiber reinforced plastics and to a two- or three-wheeled type electromotive scooter whose front wheel is driven by a direct drive motor.
A prior art scooter body is made of processed steel or cast steel, and a battery case is additionally provided in general.
In a prior art, a direct drive type electromotive wheel is well known in which a stator and a rotor of a direct drive motor as a driving motive source are directly provided between a shaft of the wheel and a disk portion. Such a direct drive type electromotive wheel is shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 wherein FIG. 5 is a cross sectional view along lines V--V in FIG. 4. A boss opening 33a of an armature core 33 is coupled with a wheel shaft 32, so that the armature core 33 is fixed to the wheel shaft 32 by bolts 34. Motor side plates 36 and 37 are rotatably supported at both sides of the armature core 33 by the wheel shaft 32 through bearings 35. Permanent magnets 38 are fixed between the motor side plates 36 and 37, and a wheel rim 39 is fixed to the outside edges of the motor side plates 37. A wheel 1 provided on the outside surface of the tire rim 39, and the wheel shaft 32 is coupled with the scooter body via suspension rods 7.
An electromotive scooter and an electromotive vehicle of two, three or four wheels have been researched and designed or partially implemented wherein such a direct drive type electromotive wheel is used as a driving wheel.
A conventional scooter body is very heavy, because the body is made of processed steel or cast steel. Thus, load on traveling motive power source is very large. In an electromotive scooter, a battery case should be additionally provided as a separable construction to the body so that the battery case receives many batteries. Therefore, it is expensive in process and manufacturing.
All conventional electromotive scooters are a rear-wheel drive type in which a rear wheel is driven, and a front-wheel drive type has been not proposed yet. In the rear-wheel drive type electromotive scooter, especially in a three-wheeled scooter having two rear wheels, two electromotive wheels are needed. Thus, it is expensive and complex in a control device. Moreover, electric wiring is complex and troublesome. If such a scooter is improved to be comfortable to drive by using independent suspension type two rear wheels, the independent suspension mechanism is further complex and troublesome. These disadvantages should be resolved.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a scooter body and a front-wheel drive type electromotive scooter which resolves the aforementioned disadvantages of the prior art.